


Last Year I Abstained (This Year I Devour)

by wendigo_alderson



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Abuse, Canon-Typical Violence, Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, M/M, Nightmares, Past Child Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rewrite of the merle storyline to fit my needs, basically another character study, cops are not discussed kindly, discussion of suicidal thoughts, its bad poetry, merle being a dick
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-28 07:15:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20060110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wendigo_alderson/pseuds/wendigo_alderson
Summary: When his breathing returns to normal, Merle asks the dreaded question.“What were ya dreamin’ bout, baby brother?”He doesn’t know why he even bothers asking anymore. The answer is written in the utter betrayal and fear that muddles the features of the small boy.“Chupacabra.” Daryl mumbles, eyes staring straight ahead.Merle knows he ain’t talkin’ bout no goat-suckin fiend.Plot rewrite where 'chupcabra' was Daryl & Merle's code word for their dad, a look at the dynamic between them and Daryl's character development because I wanted to write a self-reflective piece about trust.





	Last Year I Abstained (This Year I Devour)

**Author's Note:**

> Splitting this into two parts because I'm lazy, but this is basically shitty self-indulgent poetic fanfic.  
TW there's a scene that discusses a mildly graphic execution by lethal injection!
> 
> Chapter and story title are both from Margaret Atwood works bc I'm a literary hoe.

Before the black hole of drugs, booze and dealers had swallowed Merle whole, he had been somewhat of an okay brother. In fact, though kindergarten and first grade, when Merle still had a job at the garage, he would bring home books for Daryl at least once a week. He didn’t have the money to waste on new ones of course, but he would grab forgotten paperbacks from the waiting room or sometimes from the backseat of a car he was working on. He would read them with Daryl, determined for his brother to make it out of this shithole, away from the sickness that coated everything this small town touched, insisting that the younger Dixon take school seriously. 

One night they’re up in Daryl’s room together, a chair propped firmly underneath the doorknob to prevent their drunken father’s rage from reaching them, knowing full well that he could bust through the door if he really wanted to. Merle reads from the yellowed pages of an old Magic Treehouse book he’d pulled from the smoke-stained cab of a truck, trying to drown out the noise of their parents’ screams with his voice. As Merle turns the page, the gap in his speech allowing for the violent shrieks of their mother and the furious boom of their father’s voice to take the center stage, Daryl’s looks up at him, a question written on his brow. 

“What’s a chupacabra?” He asks curiously, tongue stumbling over the syllables. Merle is momentarily perplexed, before realizing he had read the word on the prior page. He pauses for a moment, thinking of the best way to describe it to his younger brother. Something shatters violently against the wall downstairs, the noise staccatos in the silence of the bedroom, and Merle feels his baby brother flinch slightly against him. He decides there’s only so much he can protect the kid from, growing up in this shithole, and he might as well save him from the nightmares brought on by a bloodsucking dog-thing.

“It’s a monster, y’know, a bad thing, hurts people, scares ‘em…” He hopes his vague description will satisfy Daryl. Glancing down at the boy, he can practically see the cogs turning in his mind. Then, the boy glances up, eyes brimming with innocent speculation.

“Like daddy?” He whispers. Merle grimaces, fighting against the imaginary teeth clawing from within his esophagus, the painful knowledge that Daryl will grow up just like he did: scared and alone. 

“Yeah,” Merle exhales softly, “Like daddy.”

  
  


Merle gets his first taste of Oxy a month later. He loses his job not long after. The books stop. The screaming doesn’t. 

  
  


Daryl first refers to his father as the chupacabra a few nights after Merle pulls shards of wedding china from his mother’s hairline. Daryl awakens with a start, the meaty, varicose fists from the nightmare still snug around his throat. Merle, who had fallen asleep beside him at some point that evening, wakes slowly to the gurgling noises ripping themselves from his brother’s throat. The older boy is quick to throw the comforter aside, moving into Daryl’s line of vision, grounding the panicking boy as he stares into those terrified, dilated pupils. Eventually, Daryl’s esophagus unties itself, and they sit silently, as the younger Dixon greedily sucks in oxygen. When his breathing returns to normal, Merle asks the dreaded question.

“What were ya dreamin’ bout, baby brother?” 

He doesn’t know why he even bothers asking anymore. The answer is written in the utter betrayal and fear that muddles the features of the small boy.

“Chupacabra.” Daryl mumbles, eyes staring straight ahead.

Merle knows he ain’t talkin’ bout no goat-suckin fiend. 

Daryl’s panic attacks stop around the time their mother dies. Merle shows up to the funeral high off his ass, but it’s fine because their Dad’s been nursing a flask all day. What a perfect family portrait they make, standing before his dead mother. 

The night before it all goes to shit Daryl dreams he’s an executioner. He’s looming over his father, like Death himself, watching that ugly, bulbous face contort with rancor. Those bloodsoaked hands scrabble against the gurney, purple from the tightness of the restraints, his whole body void of control, like an echo of Daryl’s childhood. It’s just him and Daryl alone in that room and he’s in complete control, reveling in the fear in his father’s eyes. Daryl maintains eye contact as he presses down on the plunger of the syringe, watching the toxins seep into the IV, trails his eyes along their lazy path to his father’s body. He basks in the moment his father realizes something is wrong, realizes he’s still conscious but not in control, realizes that Daryl has foregone the sedative, that he will feel as he loses control of every inch of his body, just like Daryl did all those days of his sick childhood. He hears a slow clap from outside the room, turns to see Merle sitting in the observation room, an easy, sadistic grin across his face.

“Told ya you’d get ‘im one day, baby brother.” 

Daryl wakes to the fading sounds of his father’s body rattling uncontrollably against the bright blue gurney.

When he realizes what’s happening, he wishes for the first time in his life that he still lived with his father. Can’t stand the thought of anyone else getting to snap that fat, wrinkled neck.

The apocalypse is perfect for Merle. While their father’s lessons had made Daryl sick, they made Merle violent. Every time he smashes through a geek’s skull Daryl knows he sees his father. Merle’s weaned on blood and broken bones and it makes him dangerous, he kills for sport, every beating filling him with euphoria. Daryl doubts he even needs the drugs in the saddlebags of his bike at this point. 

Merle is a creature of hunger, starved of rage by the living world, and now his only need is to consume. Daryl thinks there’s a very fine line between Merle and a walker, and it’s a heartbeat. His lust ends in them almost getting killed about a dozen times. Merle will throw himself into throngs of those undead creatures, practically drooling at the promise of bloodshed. Daryl knows it won’t be long until that hunger kills them, knows that Merle will go down laughing as his flesh as ripped from his bones. 

It’s this consciousness that pulls him to the trailer park crew. Daryl’s never been one for people, but forced socialization seems to him, far more appealing than becoming the other half of the Two for One Dixon Fuck-Up Special meal. Merle only agrees because a part of him will forever remain his brother’s protector. 

Daryl keeps a running list of most to least trustworthy people in the camp, though in true Dixon fashion, he doesn’t trust any of them, he just likes to know whose most likely to throw him in front of a horde of geeks. 

Every time, without fail, Shane comes out on top of that list.

Daryl doesn’t just not trust him because he’s a cop, though it certainly contributes. It’s blatantly obvious that he’s hooking up with Lori, but the guilt in his eyes whenever he looks at her tells Daryl that the man’s got one hell of a life ruining secret. He recognizes the same hunger within him that drives Merle, dressed up as leadership, adorned with a false moral compass. He’s got the kind of tamable hunger that always ends in ruin. Daryl keeps a close eye on Shane, carefully chronicling how far into mania he’s spiraled, waiting for a sign that it’s time for him and Merle to book it.

The sign never comes. Rick does. 

He’s handsome in a conservative manner, as if unaware of his beauty. He doesn’t dish out leering grins like Shane, or swing his hips in a definitive manner, he’s devoid of narcissism and it makes Daryl gravitate toward him. He feels guilt for the man, no one seems to want to tell Rick about the alleged affair, maybe out of fear that he’ll lose his direction and they’ll end up with another crazed asshole on their hands. Rick’s a natural born leader, his heart is pure in a way that the old world cherished. He makes the group feel safe, the voice of reason in Shane’s unhinged ranting. Merle hates him with a passion, but Daryl senses an underlying respect for the ex-cop in his brother, even if it’s just because he tells Shane off in a way he can’t. Rick quickly rises to the top of the list of most trustworthy. 

Their friendship forms slowly but certainly from the trailer park to the farm. They’re from different worlds, it’s an obvious fact, but the turn had burned away the picket fences and barbed wire that kept businessmen apart from thieves. They’re no longer cop and trailer trash, they’re two men with the same blood caked beneath their fingernails, worn weary by the horror that the hollow streets of Atlanta demanded. Rick trusted Daryl in a way the hunter had never experienced. He didn’t care that Daryl’s words were brash, short, and often crude, he listened to his rumbling drawl with a respectful fascination. Rick treated him like he was important, and it both excited and confused him, the swell of pride that would thrum in his chest when the ex-cop would offer a casual compliment or smile. Daryl trusted him about as much as a Dixon can trust someone, the man had good judgement and a rigid set of morals, he was at once gentle and commanding. Sometimes though, when aggression teemed over and Rick had to step in, Daryl would see once more the shimmer of black vinyl boots, would remember that taut skin used to lie snug in a cop uniform. It was never a problem until it is.

It starts at the Greene farm. He’s been getting closer with Rick, will never speak aloud that he’s become his right hand man, but he’s proud of his position, thinks it’s worth all the venomous glares from Shane. Try as he might, he’s still grown to care for this strange little family. He’s still afraid to call it his own. 

He is reminded of the predicament of love being at once delicate, and increasingly violent and rife with danger as the arrow pierces through his skin, tears apart flesh, muscle, fat, unforgiving as the water turns red around him. As the treeline swims in his vision he thinks ruefully about the irony of the situation. The fact that his daring choice to care for someone beyond himself will directly result in him bleeding to death in a river is incredibly funny to him at this moment. He thinks he hears a weak laugh escape from caverns of his throat as the world shifts once more before going black.


End file.
